


What will become of us now (at the end of time)?

by claritylore



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Doctor Who References, Episode: s03e03 Gridlock, Feels, Happy Ending, Immortal Ianto Jones, Immortality, M/M, Post-Audio 03: The House of the Dead, Sad Jack Harkness, Short & Sweet, The Space Between Worlds, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claritylore/pseuds/claritylore
Summary: "Lost in the space between worlds forever. I think I've lived long enough. I've seen you once more... what else is there?" - Jack Harkness to Ianto JonesTorchwood BBC Radio Drama, 'The House of the Dead' by James GossHow can a man who will live forever ever have a happy ending?
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness/Other(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	What will become of us now (at the end of time)?

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [Death Stranding by CHVRCHES](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF4sXuZbBpA). As is the mood. Listening recommended for feels.

It took time, but of course Jack Harkness did forget Ianto Jones in the end.

He forgot all the things he had loved about him, bit by bit; his smile, his accent, his suits, his coffee, and all of his contradictions. He even forgot his name, and it didn't take a thousand years either. The human mind is not designed to cope with so much time and loss, so it was inevitable really.

What Jack never forgot, however, was a feeling. Because feelings can be so complex, so unique, they shape more of who we are than memories alone.

After six or seven hundred years of life, it would be hard to find anyone who could seriously claim to have been loved by Jack Harkness. A jellyloran from the Practicus Cluster blew tears into her many tentacle arms as they were parted, and a time traveling fellineta went to her death with his name on her lips, while a monk with white hair and wrinkles had certainly had quite an awakening in his presence as they'd sheltered from a thunderstorm on a colony planet near the Eye of Orion, but by that age, the man known as Jack Harkness was little more than a breeze; intangible and untouchable.

Distantly, he knew his heart was never in it, that he was disconnecting more and more with every passing lifetime, but Jack had simply reached his fill. He could not expand any more; could not find the space within to care in the ways he had long ago. It was so much easier not to make friends, or put down roots, or really share much of anything of himself at all. That way, he never lost anyone. Only himself.

Every now and then, he crossed paths with the Doctor and he was, again, _Captain_ Jack Harkness. There would be an adventure, which would always end in a parting of ways, but that at least no longer hurt either. He occasionally saved a planet, or the universe, though long gone were the days when Jack considered himself a hero to anyone or anything.

This seems like a sad story, but it isn't. Stories are journeys, with a start, a middle and an end.

Jack Harkness had many lives and loves in the earlier parts of his life, but the problem was simply that the middle went on for too long. It made him long for the end, and he wanted it to be sharp and final.

_There is no redemption with no finality, so what is there to strive towards?_ Someone asked him that once, and though he could no longer recall who, the question had stayed with him ever since. It was a problem he could never get past. Every life he'd taken, every hurt he'd caused, he felt that there was no forgiveness to be found in an eternity of the same. _Can't have a happy ending with no ending._

However, time does at least have one great virtue; in the very act of passing, it can sometimes lead to change. Inevitably, one day, without warning or fanfare, things did change for the man cursed to live forever.

After more than a thousand years of life, Jack Harkness finally found his way into the space between worlds. It was inevitable that he would eventually, while trying to blow himself up, or while slingshotting between supernovas, or through one of any number of strange situations that come from a long habit of recklessness.

Jack found himself standing on a beautiful beach, with a huge bright sun hanging above the ocean waves ahead.

It was a place made of the atoms and stardust of someone who once fell through a Rift into infinity, but Jack did not yet know that.

He touched the sand, overwhelmed by feelings he could not at first place. It had been so long, the ache and pull was almost unfamiliar, but he wanted to know it again. Oh how he wanted to remember.

Jack breathed it in, this love that became a world for him to find. He let it take root inside his bones, and it spread warmly through him, like the longed-for echo of a lover's caress.

This was what it felt like to be truly loved, he remembered then, and a sudden panic overwhelmed him. He felt gas constricting his throat and the sand was all at once draining away, and someone important was dying in his arms, and he knew he was going to sink...

_It's alright, you can breathe_ , a voice told him. _You're safe._

Jack believed the voice. He knew the voice, even if he couldn't place it at first. The sand hadn't moved at all, but he still felt like he might drown. He had to hold himself still for a few moments, just breathing.

The feeling radiating out from the sands and all around him was like discovering an old friend returned from war. It was the long lost sense of belonging; someone handing him his coat before he even knew he needed it, someone holding him in his sleep, someone surprising him over and over again, someone _his_.

Something lurched inside him then at the sight of a figure in the distance, standing on the shoreline, and as he rose to his feet and stumbled closer, the sudden recognition stunned him. Jack knew this man.

A long lost name finally tumbled from his lips. "Ianto," he sighed, like a sinner come to church.

He was there, standing barefoot on the warm white sands, his trousers rolled up to his knees, his suit jacket discarded nearby, his silver waistcoat gleaming in the light, the pink tip of a stripped tie hanging from his back pocket. Ianto turned back and smiled over his shoulder at him, eyes reflecting the endless blue ocean ahead.

Jack wondered then how he ever forgot that name, that face, those long legs, that mischievous smile. But the image threatened to turn to tragedy as certain memories of Ianto Jones tumbled free from the newly cracked-open stone of the tomb inside him. He started to back away, cornered by a surge of grief that he hadn't let himself experience in hundreds of years, threatening to completely crush him, making it hard for him to breathe again.

_You're safe, I'm safe, we're okay Jack_ , the voice said, and hearing his name said by Ianto again, with that lilting accent, it somehow made the pain worse.

Ianto turned around completely then, a note of concern registering in his face, and Jack couldn't quite believe how young he looked. It hurt, truly hurt him, to remember that Ianto had hardly even lived before he'd died, at least compared to him.

But again, he felt cradled and soothed. Ianto beckoned him over and he was walking towards him over the sands before he even realised it, his heart thundering in his chest.

"Hi Jack," Ianto said, now speaking directly. "You're not dreaming. It's me. I'm here."

"Is this... am I finally-?"

Ianto winced a little at that. "I'm sorry, no. You're not dead. This is the space between worlds. It's where I ended up when I closed the Rift."

Jack's forehead creased as he had to place the memory of that. "The Rift," he muttered, and a flutter of a memory released, of years spent in Torchwood dealing with the Rift, and of a strange night in a haunted pub, where his desperation to see him had led him to call Ianto back to life, and then he'd had to watch as Ianto stayed behind and died all over again.

"Everything happens for a reason." Ianto looked out back to the ocean, smiling _,_ and added without having to move his lips, _I was always meant to come here._

He looked so serene, Jack couldn't help but stare, and a swell of affection washed over him as he remembered just how much he had loved this man once, so many lifetimes ago.

After a moment of hesitation, he slid his hand into Ianto's, overwhelmed with the need to touch him again. The smile he was rewarded with for it made his heart clench and he had to turn his head away, ashamed.

"I broke my promise," he confessed. "I forgot."

Ianto just squeezed his hand a little tighter at that. "You're only human," he replied.

"I don't know what I am anymore." Jack closed his eyes to hold back the tears that were welling up.

"I do," Ianto said, without hesitation, and gently drew him into a hug.

Jack marveled at how solid he felt, how real, and he buried himself against him, pressing his face into his neck. "Ianto," he breathed, clinging on tightly. "Please... please be real."

"I'm real," Ianto sighed into his ear, and swept up in some emotion of his own, added, "I've missed you," his voice cracking, his arms tightening around him.

They held each for some time, Jack overwhelmed by the peace that swept over him, like a gift.

"I could stay here forever," Jack whispered, unable to keep the edge of desperation from his voice as he did.

_You have a lot of lifetimes, a lot of loves and adventures to enjoy yet_ , he heard Ianto's voice around him again, chasmic and yet so intimate at the same time.

"I don't want them-" he began to protest, and was bereft when Ianto unwound his arms and pulled away from him. "I want to stay here," Jack pleaded.

The sun behind them was starting to dip behind the ocean's horizon, the light fading into orange, with a tinge of black beyond it. Ianto looked just a little less ethereal, more pained somehow in the diminishing light. Jack could sense that his time there was ending; that he was being pulled away.

"You can't. Not yet." Ianto titled his head down and kissed his forehead, tenderly. _But the day will come when your time does run out. You will die, Jack. And when you do, you will have a choice. You will be able to come back here then... if you want to._

"I will?" Jack asked, afraid to hope.

Ianto nodded. "I'll be here." _I'll always be here._

"No. I don't want to wait. Please." He drew Ianto's hands into his own again and held them tightly, pleading with his eyes for clemency from his life sentence. "We've never had enough time. It's not fair."

"You're still needed there," Ianto said, his voice choked, the words wrenched from him, "But I've already lived a long time Jack. Longer than the stars. I know our time will come. Until then, I want you to remember this," He planted his hands on Jack's shoulders and looked deeply into his eyes, and Jack could see a fathomless spark of creation within his gaze, " **You are not alone** ," he said, and the words echoed everywhere around them, expanding outwards like a shockwave, cast through his very being.

As Ianto tried to turn away, Jack refused to let go. He instead closed the gap between them, kissing him with everything he had, attempting to live a whole lifetime in a moment, as behind them the sun exploded and, streaming across the ocean, a wave of light came to pull them apart, to take him away.

This seems like a sad story, but it isn't. Stories are journeys, with a start, a middle and an end.

Many more years would pass before Jack would finally reach the end of this life, but on that day, he would make those words the final words he ever spoke.

And Ianto would be there waiting, on the beach, and Jack would run to him and hold him in his arms again, redeemed.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this little story! If you did, comments are a surefire way to brighten my day. And if you don't have time for that, a Kudos only takes a second and is appreciated.
> 
> Got more time to read? I have more Jack/Ianto stories! From 2007:
> 
> Victorian Era Time Travel Love Story [24k, M] | [The Mirror in the Morgue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897986)  
> Time Travel Angst [12k, M] [mpreg] | [A Ray, Turned Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899570/)  
> Evil Twin Shenanigans [10k, E] | [Ifan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899729)  
> Dark AU Hurt/Comfort [12k, M] | [They're Still Killing Suzie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28898610)  
> Outsider POV Mystery [8k, M] | [Random Clocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899876)  
> Mindbending Time Vortex Series [27k, G] | [The Aesop Fables Series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900332/chapters/70901193)  
> Sad AU Love Story [16k, E] | [One Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900824)  
> Light Porny Fun [6k, E] | [Symbiosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900989)  
> Collaboration Kid Series [75k, M] | [The Caerleon Series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140731)
> 
> And here are some new fics for 2021:
> 
> Ianto vs The Void [14k, T]: [The Pub on the Edge of Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588298)  
> Eye Candy, Companion, Time Agent... Who is Ianto Jones? [48k, M]: [The Eight Lives of Ianto Jones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871159)


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